Archive: Yuki Noguchi

Posted at 6:41 AM ET, 03/16/2007

Changing Cast at Post I.T

Change is afoot with the technology team.

At the beginning of the year I took over as technology editor, a job that leaves me with no time to blog anymore. So I'm officially leaving Post I.T. Not that you'll miss me: We're adding a new voice in the form of Kim Hart.

Kim started as a summer intern last year, and stayed on to become a local business reporter. She energetically fills the business pages with dispatches from Northern Virginia, focusing heavily on technology companies and trends. She's written about some local Internet-phone companies, the struggles of hyper-local blog sites, and the biggest telecom contract in federal government history. We hope Kim will add some local flavor to our blog; she will focus primarily on featuring the local companies she visits, gossip she picks up, and potentially Q & A sessions with local executives.

So welcome our new blogger, and feel free to give us your feedback on all our postings and stories.

Posted at 3:34 PM ET, 01/11/2007

Another Segment from WTWP

Washington Post Radio talks to me and the Consumer Electronics Association's Jason Oxman about the experience of the Consumer Electronics Show. It's a lot of work to navigate the show - but if you love gadgets and electronics, this type of work is the most fun. Click here to listen to the radio clip.

Posted at 4:00 PM ET, 01/10/2007

Putting Tech to the Test

LAS VEGAS - Those of you who have followed this blog for the week may have noticed that there really weren't many images the first day or so. There's a reason for that - and a few people to thank for making sure that my digital photos were transmitted from Vegas back to Washington.

I came to the show with a few technical shortcomings on the multimedia front. Namely, I failed to bring the docking station for my Casio camera. Also, Internet connectivity at this show is in short supply because bandwidth is in serious demand, as you can imagine. So uploading photos - and particularly video - has been a major challenge.

What's a blogger to do? On the other hand, where else but this show could one solve such a problem?

Enter Jon van Bronkhorst, Seagate Technology's product line manager (pictured on the right). His data storage company doesn't make the necessary goods to help me access the SanDisk memory card in my camera, but he was willing to take on my challenge. We decided the solution must exist right there on the show floor, using whatever technologies on display.

The biggest stumbling block was just accessing the photos on a laptop from the memory card. Seems so basic, right? Wrong.

Treo phones can read them, but the wireless connections aren't robust enough here to transmit such huge files. Two laptops I tried didn't have the ability to see the files. Besides, everyone we encountered used a BlackBerry.

Then we found Jeff Thomas, who was working a neighboring booth for Neatreciepts, a company that makes lightweight scanners. He happened to be toting a bag full of wires and things, including a SanDisk reader that connects to USB ports. We took this over to Steve Owens' booth. Owens (pictured on the left) is vice president of auto-backup company Memeo, which has a business relationship with Seagate. So van Bronkhorst cashed in a chip for me and asked Owens to loan his booth's laptop and high speed connection.

Access granted, email accessed, and files transfered, albeit slowly. It took the ingenuity and resources of three enterprising attendees, but I got my photos sent for the blog. Sure beats taking a late night cab to Kinkos to try the task, anyway.

Posted at 11:30 AM ET, 01/10/2007

Furry Friends For Phones

LAS VEGAS - Amid all the hot tech booths, one of the most popular turns out to be non-tech. FunFriends.com, which has retail deals with Verizon Wireless and Claire's accessory stores, makes stuffed-animal cell phone covers that work on just about any flip phone.

Pink monkeys, cute cats, bovines with bells, you name it. People here lined up to claim them.

Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 01/10/2007

The TiVo of Music

LAS VEGAS - Broadclip is a company that claims to be to audio what Tivo was for television. It allows users to scan Internet-based music sources and record them onto your iPod or another digital media player, which the company's vice president of business development Joe Monastiero says does not violate copyright laws.

"What," he said, looking at my puzzled face. "Sounds too good to be true?"

Well, yes.

But according to Monastiero, the same way digital video recorders allow you to control when you watch your television programs, its product, MediaCatcher allows you to shift where you listen to your music. And because there are thousands of free, legal Internet radio sources out there, allowing people to search for their favorite artist or genre and then capture the stream of music is legal, Monastiero said.

The audio software will be available for download off of broadclip.com starting Jan 15.

LAS VEGAS - Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez joined me for an audio blog today. Some criticize the US for falling behind on broadband deployment. In response, Gutierrez said, the number of high speed Internet users in the country is high and growing. "we are moving fast so we can...

LAS VEGAS - Check out my Washington Post Radio spot by clicking here. Join me again Wednesday morning at 11:50 a.m. (that's 8:50 a.m. for those of us in Las Vegas) on WTWP - 1500 AM, 107.7 FM or streaming live on www.washingtonpostradio.com....

love the Toyota Prius, but it doesn't really get me. It comes with voice-recognition navigation that thinks I'm looking for a post office or a bank when I tell it to "go home." Not so with the new Microsoft Sync systems in the Lincoln Navigator I tested. The software...

LAS VEGAS - The modern joystick apparently has gotten so good that there are international flight-simulation competitions won by people who can't fly an actual plane. "I'm a pilot and this is realistic," said Rob Gebauer, national sales manager for Saitek Industries, a company that makes an increasing amount of...

LAS VEGAS - The tents outside the convention halls, where companies like Microsoft and Yahoo have set up shop have gotten more elaborate over the years. This year, in an attempt to draw in people to their tent to check out its new mobile service, Yahoo offered free custom-made ice...

LAS VEGAS - At 26, Zaw Thet looks more like a tanned California surfer than the 26-year-old CEO of 4Info.net, a two and a half year old mobile search company. 4Info, based out of Palo Alto, Calif., so far has only focused mostly on text search --- a service also...

Does your iPod say "girl power"? Or perhaps it's more "Skullz"? Or maybe it has more of the "Urban2" vibe? One company, iFrogz, launched in March of last year selling rubber outfits for iPods with these sorts of names. The product is a silicone skins in 38 colors, accompanied by...

LAS VEGAS - The line between what passes for a toy and what is strictly speaking electronic gadgetry is clearly blurring. Thus, those in the toy industry now talk about their own category -- youth electronics -- which is the fastest growing sector among toys, according to Reyne Rice, a...

LAS VEGAS - There are 65 million Americans who neither have nor want a computer, Mike Migliore, director of software engineering for a private California company tells me. Therein lies an ironic, yet intersting niche for a company here at a huge show featuring all manner of high tech geekery:...

LAS VEGAS -- Microsoft's big push for consumers this year is the "connected experience" and the company sent its chairman and Chief Software Architect, Bill Gates, to Las Vegas to highlight it at the 40th International Consumer Electronics Show. Gates took to the stage at the Venetian Hotel and Casino...

LAS VEGAS - Every now and again, I find new technologies that would have saved me an awful lot of time or pain if they'd existed when I was a kid. Google's controversial book search product, for example, would have come in mighty handy when I was researching my college...

LAS VEGAS - Here in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show, no advertising opportunity is wasted. Taxicabs at the airport come entirely wrapped in corporate insignias for things like Microsoft's new Windows Vista. The effect is much like Washington's Metro cars that are covered in ads to be seen...

Ground zero for satellite radio is someplace where you might not expect it to be: Across the way from the new Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms building, a Wendy's and in the crosshairs of some of the worst traffic congestion known to man. There, along New York Avenue on...

During its presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Google projected a scrolling list of what was being searched around the world onto a large screen. It was mesmerizing to watch what people query.... So today, AOL announced what was on our minds, at least as far as search...

How young is too young for technology? I pondered this about a year and a half ago, when Walt Disney Co. announced it was launching a kids mobile-phone service, raising the possibility that 6-year-olds would be running around with cell phones. Companies like Firefly argued it was actually a good...

You know how wireless carriers love to tout the quality of their calling services in TV commercials, citing expert reports? Consumer Reports, the magazine put out by Consumers Union, released its annual cell-phone service report yesterday, and there wasn't much for some carriers to crow about. Sprint and Cingular fared...

It was about two years ago that I wrote about BlackBerry addictions wreaking etiquette-havoc in the workplace and on personal relationships. Personally, I'm so over my "crackberry," not to mention the fact I find it hard to focus on tech during a week when I have turkey on the brain....

About a year ago, news outlets were reporting that cell phones would kill the iPod. That doesn't seem to be true yet. To date, most people I talk to say music on the phone gets second billing to their MP3 players. Several phones, such as the ROKR, tried to approximate...

My college roommate Meaghan, who's like a sister to me, started graduate school and moved back in with me recently. Our primary domestic habits include: 1) blubbering like idiots over my cat Phoebe and 2) fetishizing dinner I daydream about dinner during the morning commute. I take mental stock of...

Happy Halloween, people. I have a treat for you. First, let me introduce Wagner, our pooch. [At right] We marched in a "Howl-o-ween" costumed dog parade in Arlington this weekend, proving that I'm totally demented about my pets. But hey, so are many people on the Internet. The top ten...

Remember when Gary Kasparov went up against IBM's Deep Blue computer in a chess match? This would be the text-message version of that: Today, speech-recognition software maker Nuance Communications sponsored a contest in Orlando pitting Ben Cook, 18, the world-record holder as the fastest text-message typist, against the company's own...

Wow. I seem to have touched a nerve with the Sunday story about my divided feelings on the iPod. I got many responses, mostly from tech-savvy individuals who at times lambasted me for not mentioning some relatively easy fixes to my problems. One reader wrote, "You do know that you...

I've been visiting area high schools since the school year started, because there's no place better for a technology reporter to plug into the latest trends. Teens and college students rock the latest cell phones, portable gaming systems, laptops and more. And more importantly, young Americans are the sweet spot...

Yuki Noguchi covers technology and has been with The Washington Post since 1999. She is particularly interested in writing about how consumers interact with technology and Internet subcultures -- the weirder the better. She also covers companies like Yahoo and e-retailers....